PENDLETON — As the Pendleton City Council continues to grapple with how to pay for more street maintenance, council members used some urban renewal money to address a long-disintegrating street.

At a Tuesday, June 16, meeting, the council unanimously approved a $971,971 bid from KSH Construction of Bend to reconstruct and widen Southeast Byers Avenue from Eighth Street to 13th Street, which sees heavy commuting to and from Washington Elementary School.

The goal is to not only repave a deteriorating street, but also provide more room between on-street parking and active traffic.

Before the bidding started, City Engineer Tim Simons said the city lowered its project estimate from $3.5 million to $1.4 million, but KSH was still able to significantly underbid the cost.

Simons said staff started to consider how to best utilize the savings, but they were limited by the state’s urban renewal law, which requires money be spent on streets inside the urban renewal district and prohibits the use of money for more routine maintenance like crack sealing.

The council ultimately approved a plan that allows staff to negotiate with KSH to add another 1½ street segments to the Byers project.

In January, Byers resident Carolyn Pearson went to a council meeting to request the city refrain from widening the street, balking at the high cost.

Pearson told the council she would return to them with a petition from other residents in the neighborhood, but she has yet to appear again at a meeting. Simons said staff spoke with residents about the project, and Pearson and a neighbor were the only ones who objected to it.

The council was less fortunate in the bidding process for two new electrical vehicle stations.

As the Pendleton Development Commission, council members approved installing the stations at the Pendleton Chamber of Commerce parking lot near the intersection of Southwest Frazer and South Main Street in March 2019.

But the project didn’t go out to bid until May 2020, when the city received a sole bid from Gordon’s Electric that was far higher than the nearly $69,000 Pacific Power grant the city received to fund the charging stations.

Staff was able to negotiate the price down to $74,591, which still required the council to approve chipping in another $5,600 to get the deal done. Councilor McKennon McDonald said her husband worked on the project, but the couple didn’t profit from it.

The development commission will also chip in as much as $30,000 to the Premium Tire & Lube expansion project.

The business is obtaining the help through the commission’s Fresh Start program, which provides up to 10% of the cost of building new facilities in the urban renewal district.

The 910 S.W. Emigrant Ave. business is constructing a new storage and repair facility next to its main building.